


Flashback sequence

by chocolatemilk2



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 10:47:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8841598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chocolatemilk2/pseuds/chocolatemilk2
Summary: A time travel short.





	

Green.

The lifestream thrummed before him. Cloud could see the very twines holding together the universe. Threads coalesced to massive fibrous emerald ropes, weaving and spinning amongst themselves.

“It’s not over.”

Sephiroth followed him even here. The geostigma had nearly consumed him. Cloud had lost an arm to it. The illness crept up. He could barely protect himself from Sephiroth.

Denzel had been killed drinking water inside the church. The spring was tainted somehow. A mako leak inside the spring, Tifa said. A natural disaster.

It was a living nightmare. After they’d gone through hell for a cure, the stigma came back worse than ever. Sephiroth remained at large, somehow revived by the efforts of his clones injecting him with their own cells.

Barrett lay holding Marlene’s hand till the day she passed, the sickness creeping over them both. Barrett had laid in the bed above Seventh Heaven and flatly told Cloud to kill him. 

“No,” Cloud swore.

Reeve did it later. A tortured, caged animal understood assisted suicide, it seemed.

Sephiroth attacked them out of nowhere, back at full strength, or close. He’d been resting. Waiting. Training. That was the first sign things were turning to shit.

Sephiroth killed a lot of people. The stigma killed more, as those who wandered to the church for the healing water were gruesomely sickened. The flowers in the church died. 

The orphaned children at the church disappeared into the slums soon after. Tifa had taken to long walks after the bar closed, and getting into fights with the young slum dogs in boxing rings.

Cid flew out to North Crater and was never seen again. Yuffie went after him. The last Cloud heard, she’d been planning to return to Wutai. Things were getting so desperate in the west that Cloud didn’t blame her. He’d return home if he had a home to return to. 

The three clones fell to geostigma as quickly as they were born to it.

Civillians were overwhelmed by the plague. Midgar was plunged into darkness.

Cloud often became overcome with fever and delusions.

Vincent vowed to protect Cloud, and gained Cloud time from Sephiroth’s attacks. It seemed like Geostigma wouldn’t infect Vincent. He’d always held an air of vampiric immortality about him. As the others became more unreliable, Vincent began relying on Chaos more and more to defend himself from Sephiroth.

Soon enough, Vincent seemed to be Chaos more than himself. One night while Cloud was sleeping rough Chaos maimed Cloud in his sleep. Some of the wound closed over with his Mako enhancement but it the geostigma was so advanced the wound became infected.

Cities lost their power. Streets were piled with corpses. A couple years later, the water was undrinkable in every city due to viral contamination. 

Cloud nursed Tifa as she grew sick, and this exposure, combined with his wound, accelerated his deterioration. Although Sephiroth was also deteriorating, his interaction with geostigma victims remained limited to their slaughter.

The Turks also tried to hold Sephiroth off, but soon enough, it was just the two of them fighting, as it had always been. Sephiroth and Cloud. There was no real battle. The real question was how long Cloud could protect the few survivors before the rest of the planet was destroyed.

The people left alive were like cockroaches; resilient, hardened, and inhuman. Cloud often asked himself in the fevers if he was still human, if he wasn’t a monster rotting in a vat, with all the green. Of the cockroaches Cloud knew only Tsung. He heard rumours of the mad, silent, girl named Shelke. There was also rumours of a ferocious swordsman called Kunsel with dark, sombre eyes. If Kunsel was alive, Cloud never met him. The group only tried fighting Sephiroth together once, as they were ambushed in the middle of the night. 

Owing to their unfamiliarity with each other, one of the bigger cockroaches was killed in friendly fire. It’d been Elena’s stray bullet, which Sephiroth had somehow evaded. Tensions were high. They agreed to split up; Sephiroth was mostly after Cloud, and this way the others had a greater chance of survival. They said they intended to regroup. 

Their crew agreed that Cloud would stall Sephiroth until the others came up with a plan for a group attack. 

“Do I get a say in this?” Cloud muttered. “It won’t work.”

“Too bad,” Kunsel growled.

In a desperate panic, Cloud fled. 

Sephiroth’s voice rang out behind him.

“They’re all dead. Give up. This planet is destined for greatness without you.”

Cloud stumbled through forests and fields. He couldn’t focus with the stigma jolting him awake when he tried to sleep. Time blurred together. “We’ll attack him tomorrow,” Tsung confirmed in a phonecall tomorrow. “Good luck. And for what it’s worth, you would’ve made a fine deliveryman.”

“Shouldn’t I be wishing you good luck?” Cloud asked. Tsung hung up.

Cloud didn’t see Sephiroth that day. He’d made some ground away from him, and Cloud hoped Sephiroth was still pursuing him so the others had the advantage of surprise.

Late into the afternoon, Cloud returned to where Tsung planned the ambush. He hoped he might be able to help whoever was left.

There were no corpses. Somehow that was worse.

Cloud’s phone never had much battery since the electricity went down but Tsung didn’t answer his phone. He must’ve called everyone in his contacts.

Sephiroth appeared ghoul-like, covered in snow, festering stigma wounds, and dirt. The others hadn’t gone down without a fight.

“Cloud. Fight me. I want to spill your blood.”

Cloud grimaced.

The mountains were enshrined in fog and seemed like a good place to hide. Cloud didn’t sleep for days. Sephiroth split trees with his sword. He caused calamities.

Cloud ran deep into the mountains and somehow stumbled home. Nibelheim was covered in a layer of thick snow. The books in the burnt down library were tattered and water logged. The basement had evaded the brunt of the fire. This place reminded Cloud of death more than the frigid woods, but there was nowhere else to hide. He barricaded the door for the night.

Cloud wondered if he’d die here, amongst the smashed vats and rat skeletons, and pickled organs. He was exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep. He had nothing to do but read through Hojo’s old notes. They’d been sorted through. Someone had been here recently. Vincent?

Files on the Tsviets. Experiments on VR addiction and withdrawal. Notes on Mako overdoses. Even more-- tests on stimulant abuse. Witholding summons from returning to their realms. Mako rejection. Mutation and the deceased. Adaptive, cancerous mutations and viral cultures. The ability of the human mind to withhold sanity under suffocation torture… Cloud shuddered.

A file marked urgent caught Cloud’s eye. 

Project T

Hypothesis:

The insides of a mastered time materia can be mixed with a solvent which separates the reactant and natural essences. If this first residue is cut with a binding acid and added to a particular solution (Fig 2), the resultant powder is a powerful poison which cannot be ingested.

Until now, the effects of exposing Soldiers with reactant Time materia minerals has been untested due to their lethal nature. Recent animal experiments suggest that the combination of J cells and T materia could negate the poisonous effects. However, the combination of J cells and T materia nueteralises the benefit of the T materia. I believed this to also be true of S cells, so only one animal was injected with scarce, recently acquired S cells. This animal disappeared. It is unknown whether it was instantly disintegrated or if it was effected by time.

These results show that depending on the ingestion of S cells, the properties of the time materia could be transformed from slow or stop (basic function) to their extended function (speed or reverse.) However, they could also prove deadly.

Further testing is needed to confirm human potential.

Cloud blinked.

Further testing needed. Good, that the bastard never got the chance to inflict it on some poor cadet. 

The date… Cloud squinted. He had no memory of the dates. Was that before the scientist died, or after? No matter. It was probably invented, like all the other reports in the room.

Cloud could hear Sephiroth’s voice at the door.

“Don’t hide. It’s time to end this.”

Cloud wondered.

His heart hammered in his chest. He and Zack were perhaps the only ones in the world who had received S cells instead of J cells. If this report was true, he might be able to travel in time.

He could change everything.

Or he could die.

Cloud looked at his blank phone screen. He scrambled for a clean syringe. There was some of this powder marked in the cabinet, somewhere. Beside the diluted transform, and the crystalized mako containers, rot and damp. T material min - (100mg raw)

Cloud filled the syringe with his fingers shaking. He held it towards his throat. The stigma virus lurked beneath his bloodstream. He had no idea how it would react.

The needle tip hovered above his jugular.

He was no scientist. What if he got stuck in the future, or in a pause? What if it caused mutations? What if he was in agonising pain, bleeding out of his neck? Hojo’s science hadn’t counted for the combination of J and C cells, or an immune system fighting them off. There were too many variables.

Cloud hesitated. He looked at his blank phone screen.

Were they still alive? Would his death send them to their doom?

No. They would have called him. They would have.

It was his only chance.

He wouldn’t beat Sephiroth for Aerith. Or for his mum. He was going to die. But at least he wouldn’t die by Sephiroth’s sword. If he was to go, it’d be on his terms.

Cloud picked up his sword as his vision faded.

The door burst wide open.

Green.

And Sephiroth’s voice…

“It will never be over between us.”

 

So much green.

“You cannot escape from me through death. There’s no place I can’t follow you. “

Cloud turned. “The Planet will rise.”

“I’ll hunt you down, Cloud.”

Cloud shook his head. He turned back to the threads of the lifestream, running together, sifting, growing, dying. They called at him to touch them.

He did.

Green to black.

 

Cloud awoke in a cold sweat.

It was night. He was on a cargo train. Moonlight flickered out of a narrow slat window. The carriage was filled with crates full of raspberries and blueberries. There was a terrible chilly draft.

He was naked. He wondered if this was another fever dream. He was much younger, so it was probably a dream.

Memories drifted through his sleep fogged brain as he struggled to get a grip. Sephiroth. The mansion’s lab. Hojo’s notes. Tsung and Kunsel, and Vincent and the S cells. The T materia.

A tremor ran up his arm.

They were all dead. Everyone he loved had ceased to exist, for all he knew. They wouldn’t stand a chance against Sephiroth.

It was over.

Cloud slumped against a crate on the carriage, and stared into the gloom. He’d let them all down. It wasn’t right of him to take the choice out of their lives on a wild risk.

Fuck.

Not a dream. He was going to catch a cold with this chill.

What time and place was this? How old was he? Was he still mako enhanced? No, his body would be more receptive to the weather.

They were travelling through some sort of rocky landscape. Nothing stood out.

The train dipped over a ledge and something stood out.

The wastelands.

An unmistakeable, glowing city: Midgar.

Cloud swallowed. He grabbed a stray blueberry and ate it. He felt exhausted. The day’s events… the months of running from Sephiroth caught up with him all at once. He shut his eyes and decided to deal with it in the morning.

 

“There’s a kid back here.”

“Are you serious? Shit. I thought we were done with these damn stowaways.”

“He’s naked!”

“What the fuck?”

“Probably a street rat. Junkies are getting younger these days…”

“We can’t just leave him in there.”

“If the boss sees he’ll have our head.”

“Wake up! Scram, you little runt!”

Reflexes from years of battle woke Cloud. Instantly he lashed out at the figure above him.

A meaty fist shoved him down. Rattled, Croud fell back against the crate.

“Easy!”

“Are you going to get out of here, or do you want me to call the cops on your scrawny little ass?”

“C’mon, let him go, Mike. He’s naked, for Planet’s sake.”

“I don’t know who you think you are. This isn’t a fucking taxi service. We’ve got goods to deliver, kid, and we don’t want any delays. What’s your name?”

“Strife,” Cloud muttered.

“Okay, what’s your real name?”

“Strife,” Cloud repeated testily.

“Don’t get funny with me, kid! You’re in enough shit as is. I don’t envy your parents. They’re probably worried sick, you selfish brat. Did you even stop to think of how your actions impact others?”

The other deliveryman placed a hand on his shoulder. “Too far, Mike. C’mon, let me handle this.”

Mike grumbled a few choice words and stormed off.

The less lethal looking delivery man cleared his throat and handed Cloud his jacket.

Cloud coloured and tied it around his waist. “Thanks,” he muttered.

“Sorry, Mike woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. If you get out in the next ten seconds we can pretend this never happened.”

“…Right,” Cloud said. He stood up.

The deliveryman hesitated at the door.

“Be careful, kid. You’re lucky it was Mike and I this time. There’s a lot of scum in Midgar.”

Cloud ignored him. He knew better than anyone how many scum there were in Midgar.

His first order of operations was getting some pants. A sign announced the train was in the cargo bay at North Edge Station, Sector One.

They’d never let him above the plate looking like this. But if he went below the plate he’d get beaten within an inch of his life. Not that he couldn’t take them, but he’d prefer to avoid the trouble. Cloud settled on finding the passenger help desk.

The train station was swarmed with people. The help desk was on the other side of the platform.

“Gaia,” Cloud whispered. Although his social anxiety wasn’t as bad after seeing half the planet wiped out, he still wasn’t the zaniest man out there.

Damn it. 

Cloud streaked.

“Nice arse, sweetheart!” a woman hollered.

“Oh my god!”

A man coughed. “Faggot.”

“My eyes! My beautiful eyes!”

A grandma clutched her husband’s arm. “My lord! Good heavens.” 

“Ma, what is that pale guy doing?”

“Don’t look, Lucy!”

Cloud arrived at the help desk out of breath. There was a queue. Of course there was.

Cloud awkwardly stood in the queue. He was acutely aware of a person standing behind him. The woman at the front of the queue appeared to be arguing with the train staff.

The minutes dragged by. Finally the issue with the woman at the front of the queue was smoothed over and the line moved.

“Hello sir, how can I help you?” The irritated looking staff member asked.

“I need pants,” said Cloud.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake. Henry!”

“What?”

“Do we have any spare clothes?”

“Do I look like a goodwill to you?”

“Just grab some men’s pants from the lost and found.”

“Uhh, why?”

“I’ll explain later!”

A man in a suit stood behind Cloud in the queue. Cloud felt horribly underdressed.

“I’m just… going to the bathroom. Could you please shout when you have them?”

Cloud didn’t wait for an answer, and made a beeline for the bathroom, where he locked himself in a stall.

A few minutes later, a man’s voice announced gruffly, “I’ve got your damn pants,” and threw them over the stall door. They were a tad long for Cloud’s short stature. He sighed rolled up the cuffs. There was also a crisp high visibility shirt, which was much too large for Cloud.

Cloud quickly put on the clothes and left the building for the slums.

He made a jog for the nearest park and sat down to think.

There were people to save. Aerith, Tifa, Yuffie, Denzel, half the Planet’s population. The whole world.

He needed to find out the date. It looked like they were still in Shinra’s glory days. Had Sephiroth turned yet? Jenova needed to be destroyed. It was in the early morning, going by the position of the sun. 

Cloud walked until he found a newspaper stand. He eyed the newspaper. SHINRA’S RISING STAR: BABY SEPHIROTH GOES FOR GLORY!

“Don’t touch that,” the vendor snapped. “Four twenty gil, or get out.”

Cloud couldn’t tear his eyes from Sephiroth’s figure. He was a small child, but he had eyes like none other. Killer eyes.

“Look. Sir. You’re keeping away the other customers.”

Cloud raised an eyebrow. Was a fifteen year old waif in the slums really so intimidating? There was hardly anyone about, it being a Monday the 22nd of December, and work to attend to.

He’d gone back so far. It was strange that he was a teenager and Sephiroth was still a child. It must be some weird time thing.

The holes in his memory blotted out his entire travel to Midgar. He must’ve caught the train here years and years ago. When Zack and Aerith and Tifa, and Hojo were still alive.

He had three—no, four options:

Start his own business, possibly in deliveries in the old Seventh Heaven. Buy a motorbike and kill Jenova before Sephiroth could grow up and could go mad. Befriend Aerith and use her connections with the ancients and Zack to influence Shinra.

Kill Sephiroth and Hojo before they could commit crimes against humanity. Kill Jenova. Flee to Wutai by boat and hide out with Yuffie. Blackmail Shinra to his whim.

Join Avalanche as a fighter and blow up the reactors before they could destroy the planet. Kill Jenova afterwards.

Although this option was the most appealing, it also carried the highest risk factor. Security would be tight after a reactor’s explosion. There was also the fact Avalanche hadn’t banded together yet.

Join Soldier and take Shinra apart from the inside. Cloud never wanted to be in the same room as Hojo again, but it would eventually gain him a great deal of strength when Sephiroth returned. There was also the chance of history repeating itself. Or of Cloud being too late to reach Jenova.

No matter what he did, Jenova had to go. It was only a question of when.

Quick rustling.

Footsteps.

A slum kid shrunk back as Cloud lashed out at him. “Don’t!”

“Pick on someone your own size!” the kid shouted.

“I don’t have a wallet, or shoes,” said Cloud. “Are you really trying to rob me?”

“At least I’m not hitting a little kid!”

Cloud sighed. He left the park for the main market streets.

Walking through Midgar and seeing the slums alive and populated made Cloud feel sick to his stomach. He hadn’t been around people in years, and crowds in far longer. These people didn’t know what was going to happen to them and their families. They were all doomed.

No, he wouldn’t stay in Midgar. It was too sickly. Too many Shinra eyes.

He’d kill Sephiroth and Hojo, then leave.

Cloud tried to keep his head down. He was starving, and unarmed. He headed towards the junkyard. The smell of rubbish and rotting monster matter sickened him. The scrap metal was mostly car parts. If he had a magnet he might be able to tell the high alloy steel from the iron, nickel and other rubbish. His eyes would have to make do.

He moved towards a more promising looking broken down hearse. The poverty was bad enough in the slums that most of the vehicles had been scavenged for parts already.

A monster roared.

Cloud immediately understood why the hearse had been left alone. Alligator monsters had built a nest in it. 

Shit.

Cloud threw a bolt, a tyre, and a plate at the alligator.

The alligator monster remained impervious. If anything it looked a little ticked off.

The alligator snapped at Cloud’s arm.

Cloud could wrestle one off easily, but not a whole family, untrained, unarmed and un-enhanced.

Jaws.

Cloud gave the alligator a spinning kick. The sole of his foot stung.

The alligator lunged.

Cloud backflipped out of the way, into a pile of glass and cabbage. His foot was cut open. He winced.

Two alligators were on him. Cloud heaved the first out of the way and smacked the second into the first.

The third opened its jaws wide. Cloud grabbed the closest plane of glass and slashed at the alligator. The last alligator stooped to launch at him while the other gators lifted their gaze. 

Cloud ran and his feet gave out. Thud. He sprung into a headstand and vaulted up the junk pile.

The alligators crawled up the pile behind him, drooling, their long jaws grinding.

Cloud grasped an empty gas canister, a jar, and a wine bottle. He smacked the gators’ jaws with the wine bottle and threw the jar at them. He tossed the gas canister.

He was starting to flag. If only he had First Tsurugi this fight would be a cinch.

Cloud rummaged, searching for something that could possibly help him. A funnel attached to a car. A seatbelt. A piece of cardboard. Useless.

An alligator leaped at him and Cloud spotted and ducked behind a car door. He smacked at them with his makeshift shield.

The alligator snapped at Cloud and broke the car door window. 

Cloud yelped.

He tumbled back, dropped the car door and hit the alligator over the head. He scrambled as the other gators lunged at him. They looked starving.

Oh great. A swarm of wasps burst from an upset water pipe.

They flew at Cloud’s face.

Pain.

Cloud clawed at his vision. He bolted.

Cloud ran, fell, stood up, and ran again. That stupid buzzing drone. He swatted at his vision and cursed.

He couldn’t see. Cloud ran until he was sure he was far from the junkyard and the gators were no longer chasing him.

What luck.

Well, at least he hadn’t been killed. Surviving countless planet-shaking events and Sephiroth attacks would’ve been pretty pointless if Cloud was killed by a bunch of junkyard monsters.

His vision wasn’t returning. His eyes felt swollen. Cloud sat down on the ground.

Darkness.

By noon, his eyes were oozing puss and his head was on fire. He bandaged his feet with his jacket and crawled back to the park.

Time trickled by. By some miracle, the puss dissipated and Cloud regained some form of vision. Rage filled him. Oh, those gators had it coming.

Cloud tightened the jacket bandages around his feet. He made his way to wall market in the opposite sector.

Over the years, he’d learnt a thing or three from Reno (some things he wished he could unlearn, as fortune had it.) Cloud looked like a beggar with his beat up appearance and people avoided him on sight. Despite his conspicuous spikes, he quickly disappeared into the throng of people.

Despite the high army and street presence in Midgar, there wasn’t a weapons stall openly running. There was, however, a working tools stall. Cloud slipped behind the gate and pinched a gleaming axe. He also grabbed an loaf of bread from one of the food stalls.

The storekeeper locked eyes with Cloud.

Busted.

“Thief! Thief!”

Unsurprisingly, no one seemed to want to rush the infected looking teenager carrying an axe.

Cloud made his way back to the junkyard, cackling madly, and chowing on bread. 

The alligators were waiting for him, circling the scrap parts. One lunged at him.

Slash. The gator’s neck snapped clean in two.

Rage propelled him.

Cloud staggered. He chopped the tail off the second gator, then sweeped the axe clean through its body. The third and fourth gators he axed in one hit.

Cloud twitched. He could hear a wasp buzzing somewhere. One of the buggers were still alive.

Slice.  
Cloud smirked as he saw he’d managed to slash the wasp in half, even with his shitty vision. His luck was turning around.

Piecing through the trash, Cloud didn’t manage to find much useful that afternoon, and accumulated a bit of a funk. It was nothing that he wasn’t used to running through the woods all day. It was still disheartening. He must’ve gone through half the junkyard.

Towards sunset, Cloud found a promising trench knife, and a machete that could be easily restored. He swapped his axe for it, and set aside some cleaner scrap metal from the hearse. He sharpened and sanded the blades against scrap metal until they were gleaming. It wasn’t as long or thick as he preferred, but the machete would offer him protection.

Cloud also picked up a torch, and some ammo for a machine gun.

Appropriately weaponized, Cloud began towards the Shinra building in the city centre. The hi vis shirt would have to go if he wanted to slip inside. He changed out the bandages on his feet for strips of the hi vis shirt, and let the rolled up pants hem fall over them. 

There was building security—of course there was. Cloud didn’t even know where Sephiroth lived. He frantically thought back to anything Zack might have said, any of Zack’s memories visiting Sephiroth. It was such a time ago, even if Zack could remember Cloud wouldn’t have the faintest Clue.

Wait. 

Cloud checked the closest newsagent. Again there was the Midgar times issue about Sephiroth, Shinra’s ‘Rising Star.’

President Rufus Shinra has announced that Cadet Sephiroth, age 8, is being promoted into Shinra special forces due to his prodigious mental and physical skills. Sephiroth is the youngest person on record to ever receive such an honour. In a prepared statement on Thursday, Shinra declared that Sephiroth was “remarkable, capable, and mature beyond his years.” He also announced that young Sephiroth was undertaking specialist warrior training for the exclusive SOLDIER program. Sephiroth stood stoicly and only spoke to confirm, gazing solemnly at the roaring press crowd. He was dressed in a formal button down and slacks, with designer combat boots. 

Not much is known about the mysterious young warrior, except that he’s guided exclusively by Shinra representatives. The promotion awards ceremony was performed last week. Sephiroth will not be joining SOLDIER forces immediately but has merely received advanced placement in the program should his impressive performance be maintained in years to come.

What bright future awaits this strapping young boy? 

By Elizabeth Maronnett

Cloud took the issue, and snuck into a nearby bathouse.

Feeling more refreshed, Cloud again took a loop around the Shinra building, pretending to read the paper while examining the premesis. It was closed now, and his vision was too impaired to risk breaking in and getting captured.

He didn’t feel like sleeping on a park bench. Cloud ambled to the old building where Seventh Heaven would later stand. It appeared to be some sort of falling down, decrepit pub.

“Hey! You’re too young to be in here!”

Cloud darted past the bar to swing upstairs. It was empty. Cloud barricaded the door behind him.

He tensed. The noise returned to a dull chatter downstairs. It appeared, strangely, that no one had noticed Cloud come up.

Although the pub was being restored downstairs, Cloud happily noted the upstairs was ramshackle and abandoned. It wasn’t liveable, with no electricity or running water, but it’d do for the night. Seventh Heaven obviously hadn’t been built yet. This dump needed to fall over first. Still, better to be sleeping on the floor in a dump than on a Shinra mattress. The slums definitely weren’t safe, but no one would get in during the night. He knew Aerith would always be willing to house a kind homeless stranger, but the Turks were a can of worms he didn’t want opened yet.

Cloud slept poorly, mostly kept awake by his thoughts, and the searing behind his eyes. He sharpened his blades and went through some drills as the sun rose. His lack of musculature, scrawny build and pained feet kept throwing him off.

Through the night he’d come up with a half-baked plan. He stowed his weapons and left the building.

There were two people who’d definitely know where Sephiroth lived. Hojo and Gast. Hojo was too dangerous to approach. Gast, however, might be persuaded with the right incentive.

Cloud knicked a shirt from someone in the slum’s laundry basket. This one smelled like laundry soap and fit better. It was also black, which Cloud appreciated. He still had no shoes, though.

Cloud shuffled up to the front desk. “E-excuse me,” he stuttered, laying it on thick. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“There’s a public bathroom outside the building across the street,” said the receptionist.

“Thank you,” said Cloud. “By the way, does Shinra ever do tours? My brother wants to join the army, you see.”

“Shinra does not perform tours due to security reasons. If you’d like to know more about our locations, please check the website.”

“Oh, okay,” Cloud said slowly. “Umm, you wouldn’t mind if someone walked me through upstairs, would you? He kinda told me to come take a look.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that.”

“Ahh. Nevermind. Thanks again.”

Damn. Cloud cursed mentally and left the building. He’d have to think of another way in. A fake delivery? Pulling the fire alarm? Waiting outside till a SOLDIER took pity on him?

That might not cut it.

Fuck it. Fuck it all. Cloud headed back to the markets and set about acquiring a disguise. A hair tye he found on the ground, a pair of sandals, flashy sunglasses and a red dress later, Cloud waited in the coffee shop across the street. He was pleased to note most of the eye swelling was hidden by the sunglasses.

The receptionists swapped over shift times around now for lunch breaks, Zack’s foggy memories told him. He’d liked to chat them up now and then. It was funny Cloud could remember that, but not the colour of his room in Nibelheim. Zack was a funny guy.

“Hello,” Cloud said, pitching his voice. “My name is Elizabeth Maronnett. I’m journalist for the Midgar Times. I was here on Thursday for the press conference. I accidentally left my phone behind in the room upstairs.”

“Oh!” said the receptionist. “We haven’t had anything handed in. I think the cleaners would’ve picked it up.”

“Would I be able to talk to them? It’s just I need my phone for a job.”

The receptionist shook her head. “They only work night shift. I love your column, you know. I’ll issue you a temporary pass, okay? If anyone asks, Shinra values its strong relationship with media.” She winked.

“Oh, thank you so much,” Cloud gushed. “I’ll grab it right away.”

“My pleasure!”

Cloud strutted into the lift, and swiped his pass.

He had no idea of the floor, so he pressed every button on the lift, hoping luck would find him.


End file.
